Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (2 page)

“Who’s there?” called a voice and Kali
immediately searched her surroundings for a place to hide. Before
she could get her quaking muscles to move, Slade burst out of the
forest in front of her. “Kali?” he asked in surprise, “What are you
doing out here?”

Kali’s mind raced. “I thought I felt a surge
of power at the base of the tower with the powerstone so I came to
check it out.”

Slade glanced back over his shoulder at the
base of the tree which was the tower. He was one of the few people
not of the Elders who knew of its location. He had also been
instrumental in finding out what Katya had been up to. She had been
grooming him for some time to follow in her footsteps, even telling
him the ‘truth’ about how his parents had died in an attempt to
further cement his commitment to her. She had not been
disappointed. If someone was to find her out here, he was the best
choice.

“Was everything alright?” he finally asked,
his eyes darting around the forest searching for the nonexistent
foe.

“Everything looks to be in order,” she
agreed, smoothing out her cloak where it had rumpled during her
fall. She paused a few more moments, pretending to still be looking
around until she felt certain she would be able to control her
jellied limbs. “I’d better be getting these old bones back into bed
before I ruin my beauty sleep.”

Slade nodded and escorted her back to the
entrance to the city. He left her at the base of the stairs. Once
he was completely out of sight, Kali allowed herself a bit of a
break-down; the fear from the fall that she had suppressed while
dealing with Slade came rushing back. If the stone hadn’t given her
that last bit of power…

She took out the stone and looked at it, its
beauty dulled to nothing. As she examined it with her magesight,
she realized that it was completely drained. It hadn’t just been a
fluke, that for some reason she’d been unable to access the power
that was there, there was simply nothing to access.

Her shaking turned from fright to rage. This
wasn’t the real Dena’ina stone at all.

Katya had brought her a fake!

CHAPTER 2

Layna linked with Gryffon and probed baby
Phoenix with their combined magic. They were now well-practiced at
locating the curse within her, but still no closer to figuring out
how to break it. The enchantment proved to be too powerful for her
and Gryffon to destroy, even with the help of the royal mages, and
Layna was losing hope. This time, again, they had no luck, and
eventually other duties called that required they stop their
search.

They had made some progress: They had
confirmed that it required physical contact with Phoenix for a
non-mage to contract the curse – which was good news for the scores
of citizens who she had met with in the gardens while Phoenix
played nearby – but someone with talent did not have to actually
touch her in order to get it. The auras of magic would intertwine
by proximity, allowing the curse to pass to the person that way. It
did seem that the more magic the person controlled, the harder it
was for the curse to take hold before it could spread from
them.

There was a relatively small number of
talented people who were allowed to get close to Phoenix, and both
these and the non-mages who came in direct contact with her were
mostly people who lived here at the palace, or at least in the
city. Therefore, the containment bubble was believed to have been
successful in protecting the rest of the population, despite their
errant thinking that they could definitively detect it in its early
stages. She had hoped that they would be able to evacuate the city
slowly, testing each citizen on the way out, but that had proved to
be impractical.

The curse was extremely difficult to detect,
and while they could verify if someone definitely had it, they
could not do the same to say they did not. When they had allowed
Natalya and the Knights out of the city after confirming that they
weren’t spreading the curse, the mages had originally believed this
to mean that they didn’t yet have it. However, it turned out to be
very lucky that all were honorable and all returned, even knowing
the dangers – for the mages had later realized that while it was
detectable when it was spreading, it was completely invisible in
its first stages. One of the nurses who had been thought to have
been safe was later found to be spreading it, even after having no
further contact with the child.

To be safe, they had put several pages to the
tedious task of tracking down everyone who had contact with
Phoenix, in hopes that the results would show that those possibly
infected were still in the city. So far, luck had been with
them.

They had explained the barrier to the
citizens as a quarantine, simply not mentioning what exactly they
were quarantining. They didn’t want to create a panic until they
had lost hope of breaking it, and with any luck, they could
dissolve the enchantment soon and the people would never be the
wiser. Since there were no obvious outbreaks, the people were still
behaving calmly about it. However, Layna knew that this wouldn’t
last forever, and the lack of symptoms would work against them.
Keeping the citizens locked within the city for no apparent reason
would eventually lead to unrest. They may not have to worry about
it becoming permanent now that Katya had reported delivering a
dummy stone to the tribe, but the patience of the people would now
become their time limit.

Furthermore, the forced close quarters due to
the isolation had other downsides as well. The illness that had
been going around the palace, which Layna believed had caused the
distraction which allowed Phoenix’s curse to go unnoticed for so
long, seemed to be spreading.

Several more people had come down with it,
and in an attempt to stave off further infection, Gryffon had set
up a temporary infirmary in the great hall to house the infirm.
Amelia seemed to be one of the worst cases, and she still hadn’t
broken her fever. Layna was beginning to worry. They, of course,
had the healers working to find a cure to this problem as well, but
the bulk of their efforts had to be directed towards determining
how to break the enchantment that had been placed on Phoenix.

Neither she nor Gryffon were eager to have
the fact that it was Phoenix spreading this curse get out, and so
had the added stress of trying to make sure that those who worked
on her were trustworthy so as to maintain this secret. Layna’s
nerves were wearing thin. She wanted nothing more than to be at
Phoenix’s side day and night.

Unfortunately, as a Queen, she was forced to
put all this aside and act like one in times of need. And right
now, she needed to speak with the Gelendan Council and the Ieldran
of Treymayne. They were still in negotiations about the possible
merger of the two countries, but ever since the Council had
suggested that they tell Treymayne about their current situation,
and the particularly unpleasant meeting that had followed, the
talks were getting more heated. They did not mention the original
means for spreading the curse, but did explain that it was
transmitted person to person and that if it was to breach the city
limits, it would eventually affect Treymayne as well. The Ieldran
understandably was not happy. Especially not so as one of their
envoys – Lady Aria – had been in the city the last few weeks and
was therefore detained within the containment bubble.

Gryffon squeezed Layna’s hand in support as
the two of them went to stand in front of the mirror they used to
communicate with the Ieldran. Layna let go of Gryffon’s hand
reluctantly as the image shifted and cleared to show the Treymayne
council members, the Ieldran. Their own Council, and Lady Aria, sat
around the table with them and for a few tense moments all the
people on either side of the mirror looked around at one
another.

They were supposed to be discussing the
details of how Gelendan and Treymayne would unify once more as one
big country, and working out the disagreement on both sides. But it
seemed that every time they began such a discussion, it would turn
into Layna and Gryffon fending off accusations concerning all the
things that had been going wrong under their watch. The Treymayne
people seemed to suddenly be blinded to how the union would benefit
them, all they could see were the problems that they would then be
obligated to help with.

Lady Aria broke the silence. “Good morning,
fellow councilors, first on the agenda today, I believe we have…”
she looked down at a sheet of paper before her, “the proposed
reinstatement of the temples throughout Gelendan.” Lady Aria and
was their best ally within the Ieldran, and the fact that she was
stuck here was straining her abilities to persuade the rest of the
Ieldran of her ideals.

Layna nodded to her in thanks for leading the
talks in an appropriate direction, and was met with a fleeting
smile. They had a colored past since Lady Aria had unwittingly
played a central role in an assassination attempt against Layna’s
life. Not to mention the fact that she had previously been engaged
to Gryffon…but she had a good heart and was one of the few who did
see the positives for the Treymayne people, and had not let this
latest crisis color her feelings towards the idea – despite her
current predicament.

“We are tentatively in agreement,” Gryffon
stated, “but there are a few conditions we’d like to see met…” and
he immediately dove into the matters at hand. As hard as he tried
to get the council members to stick to the agenda, the conversation
soon turned once again to the topic of their problems.

“So you basically want us to run your country
while you try to fend off yet another disaster?” said one of the
council members, a man who had been identified as Heinrich.

“You may remember,” Layna reminded him
gently, “that it was you who first suggested this alliance. We are
by no means looking to use you while we gain control of yet another
situation as you claim. We would welcome any help you have to offer
while we clean up the mess that was left to us by King Nathair and
his spread of the evil of blood-magic to our land, of course. But
our goals for this merger are for the future, making sure that once
the mess is cleaned up, that both our countries will benefit. I
won’t lie to you and tell you that it is going to be an easy task
for either of us, but it would be rather fitting to have the
reuniting our two fine countries follow in the wake of our cleaning
up the last of the mess caused by the Bloodstone whose influence is
what separated us in the first place.”

“I feel that we are getting the short end of
the deal here,” the man mumbled.

“Not so. We have much to offer you as well,”
Gryffon pointed out, adding somewhat scathingly, “As I’m sure you
all must have discussed before offering the idea to us.” He paused
a moment and several of the Ieldran looked embarrassed. Gryffon
continued, “Because we are currently dealing with a situation is no
reason to forget these. Just the number of people will practically
eliminate any threat against either of our countries if we are
banded together. We can work to completely stop the raids of the
untamed lands around us by the bandits and other undesirables that
prowl there. We can put together expeditions to cleanse the chaotic
magic in the Ferryn Plains and beyond. We have resources in our
landscapes that aren’t available to you, knowledge in our histories
and libraries that combined with yours could catapult us into a new
era of enlightenment, and so much more.”

“And this ‘situation’ you are currently
dealing with?” Heinrich asked snidely, “How is that going for
you?”

Gryffon’s temples bulged as he ground his
teeth together and Layna laid a hand on his, answering before he
had a chance to say something he might regret. “The unfortunate
situation has been contained,” she reiterated to the man. “We have
erected the barrier around the entire city and its surrounding area
in order to eliminate the threat of it spreading, and we currently
have our best people working to reverse the spell. We are making
progress and feel we are close to finding its weakness.” Though
they still had no idea how to break it, she and Gryffon had decided
that Treymayne didn’t need to know that little detail just yet.

“And you still don’t know where it
started?”

“We know that it started when their
kidnapping of the Princess Phoenix was thwarted,” she told him,
cringing inwardly at the necessity of this lie. There was no way
that they were about to implicate their daughter, however. Phoenix
needed to stay the inspiration and hope of a better time for the
people. Knowing that she was the source of the curse would be an
irony the country may not survive. “We know that the people to the
north who call themselves the Forgotten were behind the attack, and
believe that this is their next attempt. Though our mages did not
detect the curse until it had spread throughout the palace, we
believe that it had not yet reached further than the scope of the
erected barrier, so all those outside should still be safe.”

“You should get some better mages it sounds
like,” Heinrich interposed once more, and Layna was glad it was
only his countenance in front of them in a mirror. Had he been
physically in front of her she may have reached out and slapped
him.

“King Gryffon and I also failed to notice
anything untoward. The mages of the tribes are quite talented. It
is not surprising that the royal mages, whose talent was previously
suppressed under our old laws, would not have recognized the
threat. They are not at fault.” Luckily, her and Gryffon’s exploits
at the palace in Treymayne had earned them some degree of respect,
at least as far as talent was concerned, and he didn’t further
comment.

“I would remind you as well,” Gryffon put in
sternly, “That it is not just Gelendan that the Forgotten had
targeted with this curse; it is a large portion of both our
countries that would be affected. The fact that it happened to
start here would not change the fact that it would have sterilized
eighty-five percent of both our populations had we not detected it
when we did and acted so quickly to contain it.”